Fun with Decorating (How to torture your roommate)

Hello all! I've been quite busy recently. You see, I am moving with my friend Lauren into a beautiful two bedroom apartment in Queens. It's a very exciting time, but moving always comes with a lot of stress, not to mention expenses.

Today I took a little break from furniture shopping and getting our electricity provider set up to play the Sims. But you see, this was not to play the Sims just for fun. I had the idea to recreate our new place in this little virtual world, make characters of ourselves, and to experiment with decorating. Because, if you've never played the Sims, it is TOTALLY possible to recreate your own life and living space, and then mess around with it. Which is awesome.

Before they let you make a Sim house, you have to design characters. I gave myself messy brunette hair and the traits "childish, excitable, bookworm, artistic, virtuoso." Lauren, with her blonde locks and Flight of the Conchords vest, is a "neat, vegetarian, bookworm, workaholic genius." My career goal is to be a composer and Lauren, an author.

Here in our front lawn, we seem to be discussing vegetables.

And then I tried to make the general layout of our apartment.

Err, it isn't exact. But whatever, I do wha' I wan'!

So first I recreated our kitchen, which isn't quite this huge, but left an accurate amount of space in this little nook we have back here. I put a little black table there to see what it'd be like with an Ikea breakfast table there.

Unfortunately, this left no room for chairs, because Sim people apparently can't shimmy into a small space. So I took that out, decided we don't have to eat and put in a sweet sound system for dance parties instead.

*UNS UNS UNS UNS UNS*

Moving on! I then made my bedroom, which, in retrospect, looks a little like a prison, and the living room

Which left only one room.... Lauren's.


Now, I have known my roommate for quite some time, and know her tastes in decorating. However... she is not in control of her bedroom in this virtual little world. I am. So, what is a good roommate to do?

Heh heh heh.

Oh yeah. This isn't the real world. This is Sim world, and I am God.

At first, I just filled it up with garden gnomes

but then decided I could get a little more creative with it. So, I transformed it into a pond! Because who doesn't want a pond in their apartment? Nobody, that's who.



Or a zen garden!



How about a gym? Lauren can just sleep on one of the treadmills. I'll even lend her a towel.


Or, you know, she might have a baby one day
Never hurts to be prepared, y'know?


Ok, ok. Time to be serious.

And make the room how she obviously would decorate it herself....

TADAAAAA!!!!!

PINK FRILLY GOODNESS!!!

Because Lauren, the communist hipster tomboy, should obviously want to live in something that makes the Barbie dream house look like a tool shed. I am just the best roommate ever. Look, even the lamps are pink. And see? There's a pink teddy bear! I think I'll name him Tiffany.

In the end, all that matters is that you know your roommate. I've made the best room for my best friend, all that she could ever ask for.
And as you can see, my character promptly started writing her theatrical memoir

and Lauren is happy as a clam with her surroundings. See, she's even cuddling Tiffany. And all is well.
:)

Book

Hello everyone: It is here that I shall announce it officially.

I am writing a book! A memoir, to be precise.

Yes, I am going to compose a memoir of my travels on the yellow brick road. I don't have a working title for it yet, but I do have a general outline and very good idea of how I want the book to be. The title must be something snarky and comical, perhaps even a pun (the lowest of all types of humor) but, regardless, I am writing a memoir.

I figured if people buy boring autobiographies all the time (the most narcissistic type of book out there, gotta love 'em) then why shouldn't I write one? I know there's lots of books out there about the journies of working actors, including one by my professor's wife and another by a Producer's tour ensemble member... But anyway, there should be more. I've got two friends in my class who went on actual equity tours, Hair and In The Heights, and I'm thinking of letting them write passages too. Perhaps we can write a collaboration memoir. I'll propose the idea.

At any rate, yep, I'm writing a book.

Granted, I've started books before. There's one quasi-novel idea I've been flirting with for a few years-- a post apocalyptic world in which the female heroine travels to what is now "Old York" to live with her bohemian professor uncle, and they have to travel the world in search of the last remnants of nature and eventually find the "Orca Sanctuary", an underwater garden below the massive steampunk city in which a bunch of flying orca whales live who are actually reincarnated ancient philosophers. ...Yeah, you can see why I've only flirted with it.

A memoir is much easier. And who knows? Maybe trying to get this memoir published will pave the way for me to finish this Orca Sanctuary philosophers-reincarnated-as-orca-whales book. Or something.

Until then, I've got a lot of things I've been doing with my life. I'm trying to move into an apartment with my friend Lauren, so I've been alternately packing my things into boxes and looking up how to feng shui a place. It's gonna be good, y'all.

K

Oh, and

P.S. my hair is brown again. You're welcome, mom.

And thus it ends

Almost as quickly as it began, my friends, my leg of the Wizard of Oz tour comes to a close.

I have so much to write about the entire process. And believe me, it will come.

It began with the audition: just another playbill.com open non-equity call, which my boyfriend encouraged me to go to.

Then callbacks. I got bronchitis, and the boyfriend's mom made me some kind of magical Chinese crack tea which made me sing well.

Then the call that I never expected, which changed my life entirely.

Then waiting for the contract, which almost drove me nuts.

Then rehearsals, which were a challenge, mentally and physically, and an adventure all in themselves.

Then the leaving, which was sad and exciting all at once. Then the great process known as the tour.

I am so, so lucky to have known with all of you wonderful actors and become your friends. I am a better performer and person after this wonderful, insane, sometimes awful, sometimes hilarious, crazy time of my life. Thank you to all of you.

fin.